Advice Your Mom Would Give if She Thought You Were Listening

ONE MOM SAYS

How to make cash the perfect graduation gift

Posted by on 10:21 pm in ONE MOM SAYS | 0 comments

How to make cash the perfect graduation gift

We are in the thick of it. That month when the junk mail is sprinkled with graduation announcements and party invitations, often honoring people we don’t even recognize. Do you take a gift to the party? Do you send cash and a card? Do you call your neighbor to see …

Some things should be scary

Posted by on 8:38 pm in ONE MOM SAYS | 0 comments

Some things should be scary

Don’t worry, no one is getting hurt. But moms everywhere understand why I had to resort to cheap laundry scare tactics.

When my youngest daughter graduated from high school, I released my first book, Do Your Laundry or You’ll Die Alone: Advice Your Mom Would Give if She Thought You

3 Ways to Get Out of Doing Laundry

Posted by on 11:26 pm in ONE MOM SAYS | 2 comments

3 Ways to Get Out of Doing Laundry

I raised children who would do anything to get out of doing laundry. I know they don’t come out of the womb this way, so I take some responsibility. And I have spent the last few years desperately trying to correct my bad parenting.

With my daughters now 20 and …

Real life is a grade-free zone

Posted by on 9:30 am in ONE MOM SAYS | 7 comments

Real life is a grade-free zone

Some of us are sending kids off to college, some are sending them off to jobs. And some of us are beginning our own new adventures.

School and jobs are scorekeeping places, but growing up is about knowing when to measure and when to just live.

When my two daughters …

10 Messages All Sports Should Leave With Us

Posted by on 1:25 am in ONE MOM SAYS | 3 comments

10 Messages All Sports Should Leave With Us

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by Becky Blades

My hometown baseball team, the Kansas City Royals, surprised everyone last year when after decades of disappointing seasons, they made it all the way to the 7th game of the World Series. It was the kind of Cinderella story we love talking about with our kids …

College Applications: 3 Top Things to Remember

Posted by on 11:38 pm in ONE MOM SAYS | 4 comments

College Applications: 3 Top Things to Remember

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My daughter did not do her laundry or help much around the house her senior year of high school, but I have to say, she aced the college application process. She enjoyed it, and she got into her dream schools. Then as a college student, she worked in

Note to Self: Keep Believing

Posted by on 7:10 pm in ONE MOM SAYS | 8 comments

Note to Self: Keep Believing

Even though they are now 20 and 22, I encourage my little girls to believe in the Tooth Fairy, and anything else that makes their lives more magical. I’m not worried about it messing with their grasp on reality. Life will dish out enough reality. But life, particularly in the …

How to NOT talk money with nearly grown kids

Posted by on 11:31 pm in ONE MOM SAYS | 0 comments

How to NOT talk money with nearly grown kids

My kids hate talking about money. Or maybe they just hate talking about it with me.

And I hate talking with them when money is a problem. (And isn’t it always with young people?)

Mostly, I hate any conversation that has actual numbers in it.

But I love my kids, …

Taking the Terror Out of College Laundry

Posted by on 3:41 pm in ONE MOM SAYS | 0 comments

Taking the Terror Out of College Laundry

It’s happening. All over the country, young people are headed back to college after holiday break. Tens of thousands of bright-eyed co-eds are leaving homes with suitcases of freshly folded laundry, and some new garments with new care instructions to ignore.

No matter how many laundry baskets and quarters you …

25 Things To Tell Teens in August

Posted by on 11:17 pm in ONE MOM SAYS | 3 comments

25 Things To Tell Teens in August

Summers turn on us. Over twenty years of raising children, the waning days of summer have come to create in me an irritating state of mind, a free-floating anxiety and guilt. That back-to-school, so-much-to-do, what-am-I-forgetting switch flips on in August. It was about this time every summer when my daughters …